Date of Submission

8-28-1987

Date of Award

8-28-1988

Institute Name (Publisher)

Indian Statistical Institute

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Subject Name

Quantitative Economics

Department

Economics and Planning Unit (EPU-Delhi)

Supervisor

Chetty, V. K. (EPU-Delhi; ISI)

Abstract (Summary of the Work)

If I am given the cholce to define Development Economi ea, I would do so in such a way that the work reported here aust eni nent ly belong to the realm of that discipline. Before proceeding further one must remenber what Hirschman said nearly 28 yeara ago ...probably that econonists have not been able to construct, much less agree on, a alngle and unbroken chain of causes and effects that would neatly explain the transition from While this f ailure is of course only to the credit of economists, it cannot be denied that Underdevelopment to development. In comparison with the elaborate construeta of atatie partial and general equilibrium theory, our dynamtcs, parti cularly those dealing with underdeveloped countries, have themselves an underdeveloped look. Challenging generalisations and Insights are conspicuously rare in the writings theoretical on econonie development...& Probably the statement still holda though may be to a lesser extent. Through the yeara, the research response, though overvhelaing, could not be enough insofar as the enormity of the problem is concerned. While much deseriptive, very useful in their own right, 11terature exists in developnent economics, a few attempts have been directed towards abstraction, and so, underatanding the subtlety of the Interplay of forcea that work along the pach of development dynamics. As far as I can assure you, having said all this, here is anattempt in the right direetion which is obviously not to clain that it really adde to or subt racta anything substantial from the State of developnent theory. Of course, the focus here 1a on growth and diatribution, the two questions which are as old as the science of economics itaelf. And not aurprisingly it has become the most basic question to the poliey planners, at least, In developing countries.The balanced growth theorista 1ike Nurkse and Lewis perhaps nay not entirely agree with our approach that each at period of time the macro balancing conditions must hold; for example, the demand for a particular commodity must equal its aupply, else there will be rationing in that market. But or chere ia no reason why they should not. Marketa are clearingeither by endogenous forces 1ike prices or Income, or by exogenous rationing assumptions. However, we are not assuming the same rate of growth for each economie variable in general. Nevertheless, this does not take this model anywhere near the unbalanced groweh theory developed by Hirschnan. Actually, it is far from that. To my mind, expost, the markets must clear by rationing or otherwise.Just by imposing the balancing conditiona we could see the inter-relationships among growth, distribution and prices. It laya bare the mechanisma that work to settle down the intricate economie variables to rest in each period. Inasmuch as our principie is to keep che approach impa, we have tried to raise as nany relevant questions as possible in the one consumption good model vith one technique of production. Nevertheless.

Comments

ProQuest Collection ID: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:28843427

Control Number

ISILib-TH194

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

http://dspace.isical.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10263/2146

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